Some remedies

- My head hurts, neighbor, what do you think it is? It was fine in the morning.

- Take hot water with lemon, neighbor. Maybe you have high blood pressure; also eat a lime, take your crushed parsley ...

As children, we learned at home that you cannot expect all illnesses to be cured with a prescription; sometimes because there was no money to pay the consultation or, simply, because we had to buy the prescription in a pharmacy (and the money with just enough to eat), unless the disease came on quickly, was serious, then, yes, whatever it took. The good news is that we got very sick very seldom. I imagine it was also because our environment was less polluted, we ate less but more nutritiously and, despite being poor, we had less stress: without computers, telephone or television. But of course, poor and all, there were enough books in the house to read, because these remedies always had priority.

Thus, when my mother listened to the doctor's diagnosis (praying that it was not something very dangerous), she looked at the prescription and, if there was no money to buy the medicines, she began to look for the home remedies that she prepared to cure our ills.

We learned, like many other families, that horsetail cures kidney problems; matico is to relieve the flu; parsley helps when we are angry; celery calms colic as much as oregano and rue. We learned that to sleep well we can take rosemary or chamomile and, if we have an allergy, nothing better than lancetilla. Needless to say, the pimpernel that alleviates heart disease, along with mallow and congonals, mixed with lime peel and white geranium ... Our ancestors knew a lot about traditional medicine and their children have learned very little.

And it is not that we are against health systems, we are not against what doctors prescribe; but we well know that poverty is great and the resources of hospitals are not enough for everyone, especially at this time. It also happens that, for now, if we have a low-risk disease, it is better to heal ourselves at home, so hospitals can treat the most serious patients.

But when the illness is new and dangerous, like the one that besieges and threatens us so closely now, that we still do not know how to deal with and which keeps us in a state of uncertainty, it is difficult to say what would be the most appropriate. Surely there are still older people trying home recipes and, perhaps over time, some will work.

In the meantime, our pots are full with parsley sprigs, a little mint, celery, spearmint, rosemary, lancetilla, congona and mallow. They do not cure the coronavirus, but they alleviate other ills that also haunt us and which we can alleviate promptly.

Lola Paredes,

from Cajamarca.